The present invention relates to a sense amplifier, and more particularly to a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) high-speed sense amplifier for amplifying a potential difference between a pair of bit lines or a pair of data buses in a static semiconductor memory.
Accompanied by the recent developments in the high integration of semiconductor memories, each transistor constituting a memory cell has become more and more miniaturized. This miniaturization has reduced the driving capability of a transistor, lowered the speed of the potential change, during reading, of a pair of bit lines or a pair of data buses connected to a sense amplifier, and decreased the potential difference between a pair of bit lines or a pair of data buses. To detect the thusly decreased and slowly changing potential difference between a pair of bit lines or a pair of data buses, an improved high-speed sense amplifier is necessary.
A conventional sense amplifier cannot provide a high-speed operation with such a decreased and slowly changing potential difference, because of a long rising period and a large amplitude of the output signal, as described later in more detail.